A rapidly developing area of wireless networks is mobile ad hoc networks. Physically, a mobile ad hoc network includes a number of geographically-distributed, potentially mobile nodes wirelessly connected by one or more radio frequency channels. Compared with other type of networks, such as cellular networks or satellite networks, the most distinctive feature of mobile ad hoc networks is the lack of any fixed infrastructure. The network is formed of mobile nodes only, and a network is created on the fly as the nodes transmit to or receive from other nodes. The network does not in general depend on a particular node and dynamically adjusts as some nodes join or others leave the network.
An ad hoc network can be quickly deployed and provide much needed communications. Ad hoc networks will allow people to exchange data in the field or in a class room without using any network structure except the one they create by simply turning on their computers or PDAs, for example.
New applications for mobile ad hoc networks will continue to emerge and become an important part of the communication structure. Due to the lack of a fixed infrastructure, nodes must self-organize and reconfigure as they move, join or leave the network. All nodes could potentially be functionally identical and there may not be any natural hierarchy or central controller in the network. Many network-controlling functions are distributed among the nodes. Nodes are often powered by batteries and have limited communication and computation capabilities. The bandwidth of the system is usually limited. The distance between two nodes often exceeds the radio transmission range, and a transmission has to be relayed by other nodes before reaching its destination. Consequently, a network has a multihop topology, and this topology changes as the nodes move around.
The Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANET) working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has been actively evaluating and standardizing routing, including multicasting, protocols. Because the network topology changes arbitrarily as the nodes move, information is subject to becoming obsolete, and different nodes often have different views of the network, both in time (information may be outdated at some nodes but current at others) and in space (a node may only know the network topology in its neighborhood usually not far away from itself).
A routing protocol needs to adapt to frequent topology changes and with less accurate information. Because of these unique requirements, routing in these networks is very different from others. Gathering fresh information about the entire network is often costly and impractical. Many routing protocols are reactive (on-demand) protocols: they collect routing information only when necessary and to destinations they need routes to, and do not generally maintain unused routes after some period of time. This way the routing overhead is greatly reduced compared to pro-active protocols which maintain routes to all destinations at all times. It is important for a protocol to be adaptive. Ad Hoc on Demand Distance Vector (AODV), Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) and Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm (TORA) are representative of on-demand routing protocols presented at the MANET working group.
Examples of other various routing protocols include Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV) routing which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,412,654 to Perkins, and Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,304,556 to Haas. ZRP is a hybrid protocol using both proactive and reactive approaches based upon distance from a source node.
These conventional routing protocols use a best effort approach in selecting a route from the source node to the destination node. Typically, the number of hops is the main criteria (metric) in such a best effort approach. In other words, the route with the least amount of hops is selected as the transmission route. However, Quality-of-service (QoS) routing in mobile ad hoc networks is also gaining interest. To provide quality-of-service, the protocol needs not only to find a route but also to secure the resources along the route. Because of the limited, shared bandwidth of the network, and lack of central controller which can account for and control these limited resources, nodes must negotiate with each other to manage the resources required for QoS routes. This is further complicated by frequent topology changes. Due to these constraints, QoS routing is more demanding than best-effort routing.
Also, as mentioned, the bandwidth of a typical ad-hoc network is limited. Conventional mobile ad-hoc network routing protocols assume that all nodes are on the same channel permanently. This single channel operation is a factor in the bandwidth availability. Although some networks may use a separate control channel to reduce overhead on the transmission channel, conventional mobile ad-hoc networks do not utilize multiple channels for transmitting packet data.